HP Omen X 2S Gaming Laptop With Dual-Screen Design Debuts

HP Omen X 2S price starts at $2,100 (roughly Rs. 1,48,000), and the laptop will go on sale from June.

from RSS Feeds | GAMES - RSS Feed - NDTV Gadgets360.com http://bit.ly/2W3D5ZI

Xiaomi retains its top spot as Indian smartphone market grows in 1Q19: IDC India

Xiaomi maintained its top position as the Indian smartphone market grew 7.1 percent year-on-year (YoY), International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker has found. The market research firm says that a total of 32.1 million units were shipped in the first quarter of 2019. “Despite the government’s new e-commerce rules, online channels managed to sustain their pace, registering 19.6 percent YoY growth in 1Q19. Fueled by attractive offers and new launches by vendors like Xiaomi, Samsung, Realme, and Huawei, online sales reached 40.2 percent of the market in 1Q19,” Upasana Joshi , Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India, said.

IDC says that large shipments in the festival quarters (3Q and 4Q of 2018) led to high channel inventory, leading to flat YoY growth in offline channels in 1Q19. Average selling prices grew by 3.3 percent YoY, and this growth can be attributed to the growth in the $300-$500 segment, accounting for 6 percent of the overall smartphone market. This segment also outgrew all other price bands on the back of the Vivo V15 Pro.

“Samsung surpassed Apple for the leadership position in the premium ($500+) segment with an overall share of 36 percent in the quarter due to the Galaxy S10 flagship series. OnePlus followed, as its OnePlus 6T was the top-selling model in India’s $500+ smartphone segment,” Joshi added.

Meanwhile, the feature phone market, which still accounts for half of the total mobile phone shipments, registered 32.3 million-unit shipments in the quarter, with a sharp decline of 42.4 percent YoY. There was a sharp drop in 4G-enabled feature phones, declining by more than 50 percent YoY due to channel inventory from previous quarters. There was also a sequential dip in 2G/2.5G feature phones, IDC said.

Vendor-wise Highlights:

Xiaomi maintained its leadership, growing by 8.1 percent YoY in the first quarter. Xiaomi continued to dominate the online channel with 48.6 percent share. Samsung continued in the second position with a YoY decline of 4.8 percent. However, its revamped product strategy of launching its online-exclusive M-series raised its online share to 13.5 percent on the back of the Galaxy M20.

Vivo continued in third position as its shipments doubled, driven primarily by its new flagship V15 Pro and affordable Y91. Oppo recaptured fourth position with a YoY growth of 9.7 percent backed by new models such as the K1 and the F11/Pro series, as well as its ongoing affordable A-series. Realme continued to feature in the top 5 vendors list, despite dropping to the fifth position. Its newly launched realme 3 series produced the highest shipments for the vendor.

According to Navkendar Singh, Research Director, Client Devices and IPDS, IDC India, “In 2019, we should expect further aggressive offline expansion by the online-heavy vendors in an attempt to get a wider footprint in smaller cities and towns. Having said that, the influence of the online channels and their focus on the smartphone business will continue. This will gain momentum in the all-important second half of the year since the affordability driving factors like EMIs/cashback offers continue to be top-of-mind attributes for consumers.”

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2LJJUvq

PUBG Mobile Gameplay Management System rolling out to help curb gaming addiction

While most of us know PUBG Mobile for its interesting gameplay and fun nature, the title has faced its fair share of controversy as it was blamed for being too addictive in nature. It has even been banned from some regions. Keeping digital wellbeing of their users in mind, Tencent Games is now rolling out a new Gameplay Management System that will enable users to better manage their time and be notified when they have been playing the game for too long. The same feature was being tested previously and was accidentally rolled out to some users. 

The new Gameplay Management system is being made available for a few Asian and North African regions. The feature will be enabled in India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Nepal, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It will also be deployed globally by slowly being rolled out in more regions, says GameSpot. With the new system in place, players under the age of 18 will need to accept game advisory before proceeding and playing the game. Additionally, they will also receive pop-up notifications to cease playing if they have been doing so for a long time. 

“PUBG Mobile is committed to being a responsible interactive entertainment provider. With experts worldwide examining the impacts of technology and video games on players of all ages, our team wants to ensure our community is equipped to make informed choices when it comes to PUBG Mobile,” says Vincent Wang, General Manager of Global Publishing Department, Tencent Games. “Today's announcement is a proactive step in ensuring that hundreds of millions of players worldwide can continue to enjoy PUBG Mobile in a sustainable manner.”

The game developers will also garner feedback from players to “adjust and enhance" the Gameplay Management system as it is rolled out at a global scale. There is no mention about at what time intervals the notifications will pop up to notify users to stop gaming. However, when the feature was accidentally enabled earlier, users were locked out of the game when they exceeded the six-hour gameplay limit. 

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2W8OMhE

Samsung Galaxy A80 India launch could happen next month: Report

Samsung launched the Galaxy A80 in Thailand last month, and now a media report has claimed that the South Korean tech giant could launch the phone in India in June. Further, the report claims that the phone would launch in the price bracket of Rs 40,000-Rs 50,000. If true, this will essentially pit the phone against the recently launched OnePlus 7 Pro, which starts at a price of Rs 48,999 for the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage. Previously, Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, Samsung India had said that the phone would be launched in May and will cost between Rs 45,000 and Rs 50,000. He also said that the newly launched handsets would be available both online and offline.

Samsung Galaxy A80 Specifications:

The Samsung Galaxy A80 sports an edge-to-edge display with minimal bezels that stretches 6.7 inches diagonally, making it the largest display ever on a Samsung device. The panel has a resolution of 1080x2400 pixels with a 20:1 aspect ratio. Under the hood, the Galaxy A80 runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G chipset that is tuned specifically for gaming with an overclocked GPU and support for HDR gaming. There's 8GB RAM onboard along with 128GB storage and no option to expand it. There's also no 3.5mm headphone jack.

The A80 also has the same ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor for authentication that's there on the Galaxy S10 while the display also doubles up as the earpiece by sending sound vibrations through the screen while on a call. The phone has a triple camera setup which includes a 48MP camera sensor along with an 8MP wide-angle sensor offering 123-degree field of view. The third sensor is the 3D ToF sensor that's used for depth measurement. The entire camera stack along with the LED flash rises up from the frame, then flips over to the other side becoming the front camera.

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2vXYxRf

OnePlus 7 Pro passes JerryRigEverythings durability test with flying colours

Zack from JerryRigEverything is well known for testing the durability of smartphones. Over the years, the YouTuber has put multiple phones through their paces to figure out which ones survive the scratch, flame and bend tests. The OnePlus 7 Pro is the latest handset to go through Zack’s harsh tests and, while it was pretty dinged up by the time tests concluded, it did well enough to earn a thumbs up from the YouTuber. As always, the tests start with unboxing the handset, which is followed by a scratch test. The OnePlus 7 Pro fares well here as it is protected by Gorilla Glass 6. 

Visible scratches show up on the screen with a level-six Mohs pick with deeper grooves appearing at level seven. This is in line with what other flagship phones exhibit, like the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the iPhone XS Max. Next up is the phone’s earpiece, which is resilient to Zack’s blade but the pop-up camera is not so tough. While the sides and the top of the front-camera are made of metal, the portion surrounding the lens is made of plastic and scratches easily. However, this area is unlikely to be scratched as it pops back into the phone with the camera. The lens on the front camera also doesn’t scratch easily, neither does the rear panel, nor the triple camera setup on the back. 

The sides of the OnePlus 7 Pro are made of metal and produce that well-known head-splitting torturous sound when Zack scratches it with a blade. Next up is the flame test and the smartphone passes this test with flying colours. While we have seen pixels on the flagship phone’s display die when put through this test, the OnePlus 7 Pro impressed us as nothing happened when it was subjected to an open flame for about a minute. The oleophobic coating burned off but that is inevitable. The phone was put through the bend test where it exhibited slight flex but nothing snapped. Overall, the OnePlus 7 Pro passed JerryRigEverything’s durability test with flying colours. 

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2Ea2F5k

OnePlus to open its biggest store in Hyderabad later this year

OnePlus has announced that it would open the world’s largest OnePlus store in Hyderabad later this year. It made the announcement on Twitter and shared some images of the proposed building. The company also shared the designs of its experience stores in Mumbai and Pune. A media report said that the store in Hyderabad would be a six-storeyed building, which will be spread across an area of over 16,000 square feet.

OnePlus already has an R&D centre in Hyderabad, as well as three experience stores in New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai. The company is working on developing India-specific features that are expected to be rolled out to devices soon. Company co-founder Carl Pei said that Hyderabad is a booming tech and IT centre.

We are excited to announce that we will be opening the biggest OnePlus store in the World later this year in Hyderabad. #OnePlus7SeriesLaunch pic.twitter.com/oxFoKghgcc

— OnePlus India (@OnePlus_IN) May 14, 2019

“The store design will be the confluence of the old and the new, representing the city of Hyderabad. The outer layer will have a clean white finish, with nano-material that can withstand dust and maintain a clean, white look for years; the inner wall will represent raw Hyderabad. Also, the store will light up differently as the day goes by, depending on the position of the sun,” Carl said. OnePlus currently has 485 offline touch points across the country.

The company recently launched the OnePlus 7 Pro and the OnePlus 7 smartphones in the country. Both the phones are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor. The OnePlus 7 Pro sports an all-screen display design with a pop-up camera mechanism. It sports a 6.67-inch fluid AMOLED display with a QHD+ resolution and has a 90 Hz refresh rate. It comes with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage.

Coming to the optics, the OnePlus 7 Pro sports a triple rear camera setup with a 48MP Sony IMX 586 sensor paired with an f/1.6 aperture lens. This main sensor supports OIS and EIS, and is supplemented by an 8MP telephoto lens that offers 3X zoom and also a 16MP ultra-wide lens.The 8MP sensor is paired with an f/2.4 aperture lens and gets OIS while the 16MP ultra-wide lens is coupled with a f/2.2 aperture lens with 117-degree field of view. There are also stereo speakers on the OnePlus 7 Pro, along with an improved in-display fingerprint sensor. The phone is backed by a 4,000mAh battery, and supports Warp Charge 30 at 5V/6A that is said to deliver 38 percent faster charging speeds than the previous version.

The OnePlus 7, on the other hand, doesn’t get the full-screen display design but gets the same waterdrop notch display as the OnePlus 6T. It features a 6.41-inch Full HD+ 60Hz Optic AMOLED display and will be available in 6GB/8GB RAM, and 128GB/256GB UFS 3.0 storage variants. The smartphone features dual rear cameras on the back with a 48MP Sony IMX586 main sensor with a lens having an aperture of f/1.7, and supports OIS, EIS and PDAF. The primary sensor comes with a 5MP secondary sensor, and the lens with this sensor has an aperture of f/2.4. On the front is a 16MP Sony IMX471 secondary sensor with the lens having an aperture of f/2.0. It is equipped with a 3,700mAh battery with fast charging support (5V/4A), and features an in-display fingerprint sensor.

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2W23bfQ

Panasonic announces Nymbus EV charging solution for India

Panasonic announced a new B2B solution for India in New Delhi earlier today. Christened Nymbus, the solution essentially provides battery charging services to electric vehicles (EVs). According to Panasonic, Nymbus consists of physical components, like charging stations, battery swap stations, onboard chargers, and telematics systems. It also consists of virtual components, like cloud services, analytics, and an intuitive user dashboard.

Panasonic, which is currently in the first phase of its new electric mobility initiative, has partnered with two Indian electric mobility service providers to deploy its solution. The two providers are SmartE and qQuick, both of which are based in the NCR. While SmartE deals with electric three-wheel rickshaws, qQuick manufactures electric scooters. Up to 150 SmartE units and 25 qQuick scooters will benefit from Panasonic’s new charging solution.

“Conceptualized and developed in-house, our charging service is currently meant for two and three wheelers, but we aim to expand that in the near future to other vehicles. We have currently deployed our solutions in Delhi NCR and aim to expand the offerings to Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Amaravati in the next three years and 25 more cities in the next five years (catering to) targeting approximately 1 million vehicles,” commented Atul Arya, Head of Energy Systems Division at Panasonic India in a press release.

SmartE’s electric rickshaw can seat up to four passengers plus a driver and be used for drives shorter than 5 kilometres. The rickshaws currently number 600 in total in India. qQuick’s electric scooter, on the other hand, is unlocked and authenticated using a proprietary smartphone app and can be ridden for up to 50 kilometres on a single charge. One should be able to see Panasonic’s new charging solution in parts of the NCR sometime in the near future.

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2E8QKo6